JEFF EDELSTEIN: Stop staring at me, you young couples without children

My two-year-old daughter was tossing around refried beans. My three-year-old son was walking around the table playing a video game. I was drinking a beer, having long ago gave the keys to my wife when she insists — insists! — on getting out of the kitchen and going out to eat at a chain Mexican restaurant.

It was a normal enough outing for our little family.

“Look over there,” my wife said, a jerk of the chin noting where I should be looking. (She used her chin because at this point, she was trying to force feed our daughter with one hand while horse collaring our son.)

So I glanced to where her chin pointed me. It was a couple. Right behind us. Mid-20s. Married (I checked.) Having a cocktail and appetizers. And playing Scrabble.

Advertisement

“‘Memba tvhat, being able to pway games and not habve a care?” my wife mumbled, as she was now changing our daughter’s diaper with her feet and using her mouth to help my son color in a Transformers picture.

“Ahhhh yes,” I said, turning back around to glance again at the couple.

And then it happened. Right there. I got what I call “The Stare” from the woman half of the Scrabble couple. I know The Stare — it’s the stare of contempt, scorn and arrogance, all rolled into one beady-eyed package.

And why did I get it? Because my daughter was now screaming “Elmo’s Song” at the top of her lungs and my son was re-enacting the blow-up-the-Death Star scene from “Star Wars” using three forks and a bronzed pumpkin.

OK, I admit: Sometimes we’re not the best-behaved chain restaurant goers at 5 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon. So sue us. But to give me The Stare? Not right. But The Stare I got, and The Stare I will continue to get, and The Stare I’ve gotten countless times in the past from these young married couples.

And so it’s here, on this day and in this space, I need to say something to all the childless couples out there: I loathe you. Why? Because you just don’t know. You think you’re going to make perfect parents one day and you think you’re better than me. You won’t and you’re not. Trust me.

Of course, a few years back, I was the one doing The Stare. I was the one to be loathed.

I remember being part of a childless couple. It was lovely. We’d sleep late, we’d travel, we’d eat out all the time. And most of all, when we’d see hapless, stupid parents and their equally hapless and stupid offspring, we’d “tsk-tsk” to ourselves, clucking our tongues, telling each other what horrible parents those people are and that when we have kids we’d never be like that and on and on and on.

Well, I’ve got news for you, childless couples: You have no idea. You think you have an idea, but you don’t. And don’t tell me about how you once babysat your little cousin and taught him long division or how your sister’s kid thinks you’re just the bestest guy in the whole wide world or how you put Mary Poppins to shame when you used to be a nanny. I don’t want to hear it. You know why? I’ll repeat: Because you have no idea. No idea what it’s like to be a parent to two small children who have their own notions of how to properly enjoy their evening out at a Mexican chain restaurant.

And while the scenarios I laid out up there — the diaper changing and refried beans and such — are obviously (slightly) fanciful, I’m telling you: I could be somewhere and my kids could be on their best behavior and I’ll still get The Stare. Why? Because even when little children on their best behavior they still act like Mussolini from a windowsill: Loud, frantic and megalomaniacal.

So attention childless couples: Next time you see me holding my daughter off the ground with one hand while Homer Simpson-ing my son (you know, hand around neck, spitting out “why you little …”) do me a favor: Don’t judge. Keep moving along, because believe me: You’ll get yours one day. You’ll have our own little kids you’ll love unconditionally — no matter how many bronzed pumpkins they blow up — and you’ll get The Stare from the new batch of childless couples.

And if I’m being honest, you’ll probably get The Stare from me as well, as my kids will be older and I’ll have completely forgotten the fact they once behaved like little Tasmanian Devils hopped up on cocaine and Red Bull.